Today’s Highlights:
Death Becomes Her, world premiere by Julia Mattison, Noel Carey & Marco Pennette, directed by Robert Zemeckis & Christopher Gattelli, featuring Megan Hilty (Madeline Ashton) Jennifer Simard (Helen Sharp), Christopher Sieber (Ernest Menville) and Michelle Williams (Viola Van Horn), with Marija Abney, Sarita Colon, Kaleigh Cronin, Natalie Charle Ellis, Taurean Everett, Michael Graceffa, Kolton Krouse , Josh Lamon, Sarah Meahl, Diana Vaden, Sir Brock Warren, Bud Weber, Ryan Worsing, Ericka Hunter Yang, Warren Yang, Beau Harmon, Johanna Moise, Amy Quanbeck, and Zach Williams, opens at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre.
MCC Theater‘s Miscast24 benefit concert digital broadcast, honoring Jason Robert Brown and Nicole Suazo, featuring Gavin Creel, Leslie Rodriguez, Brian D’acy James, Lea Salonga, Ingrid Michaelson, Ryan Vasquez, Wayne Brady, Amber Iman, Mykal Kilgor, and Jinkx Monsoon, begins its on-demand streaming broadcasts at 7 PM.
Three Houses, world premiere by Dave Malloy, directed & choreographed by Annie Tippe, featuring J.D. Mollison (Becket), Mia Pak (Sadie), Margo Seibert (Susan), Henry Stram (Grandfather), Scott Stangland (Wolf), and Ching Valdes-Aran (Grandmother), begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre.
To Life: A Celebration of Sheldon Harnick’s Legacy on his 100th live & livestreamed concert, directed by Robert W. Schneider, at 7 & 9:30 PM at NYC’s 54 Below. Cast (7 PM): Laura Benanti, Allison Blackwell, Robert Cuccioli, Edmund Gaynes, Amanda Green, Cady Huffman, Adam Kantor, Liz Larsen, Austin Pendleton, Neva Small, Mary Stout, and Jake Urban. Cast (9:30 PM): Jim Brochu, Mary Callanan, Stephen Mo Hanan, Jessica Hecht, Penny Fuller, Eric Michael Gillett, Coulby Jenkins, Janine LaManna, Michael Lavine, Craig Lucas, Howard McGillin, and Christine Pedi.
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2024 Tony Nominations, updating live here.
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Nominations for the 2024 Drama Desk Awards have been announced.
Click here for the complete list of nominees. Winners will be announced June 10.
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2024 Chita Rivera Awards will be presented Mon. May 20 at 7:30 PM at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place off Washington Square Park.
Bernadette Peters (Lifetime Achievement Award), presented by Joel Grey.
Click here for the complete list of nominees.
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Gingold Theatrical Group will present a script-in-hand performance of Shaw’s Heartbreak House on Mon. May 20 at 7 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by Stephen Brown-Fried.
Christine Pedi (Nurse Guiness/Narrator), Teresa Avia Lim (Ellie Dunn), Dakin Matthews (Captain Shotover), Laila Robins (Lady Ariadne Utterword), Patrice Johnson (Hesione Hushabye), Mark Nelson (Mazzini Dunn), Robert Cuccioli (Hector Hushabye), Steven Skybell (Ross Mangan), Carman Lacivita (Randall Utterword) and Nick Wyman (Burglar).
The play, which Shaw began at the beginning of WWI but which was first performed by New York’s famed Theatre Guild in 1920, brings a wildly disparate group of people together in the English countryside over a September weekend to make major decisions about their future. No stone is left unturned as each character is forced to come to terms with his or her past while finding a way to move forward in the face of the coming crisis.
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LA’s Center Theater Group has announced its 2024-25 season:
Green Day’s American Idiot (Oct. 2 – Nov. 10, at the Mark Taper Forum), by Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong & Michael Mayer, directed by Snehal Desai.
Fake It Until You Make It (Jan. 29 – Mar. 29, 2025), world premiere by Larissa FastHorse, directed by John Garcés. The play is about being whoever you want to be, even when it’s not who you are.
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends (Feb. 8 – Mar. 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre), directed by Matthew Bourne, with choreography by Stephen Mear, starring Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga, and more TBA.
Life of Pi (May 7 – June 1 at the Ahmanson Theatre), by Lolita Chakrabarti, directed by Max Webster.
Hamlet (May 28 – July 6 at the Mark Taper Forum), adapted & directed by Robert O’Hara.
Parade (June 17 – July 12 at the Ahmanson Theatre), directed by Michael Arden.
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LA Opera will present Puccini’s Turandot May 18 – June 8 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, conducted by James Condon.
A.M. Angela Meade (Turandot), Ashley Faatoalia (L’Impertore Altoum), Morris D Robinson (Timur), Russell Thomas (Calaf), Liù (Guanqun Yu), Ryan Wolfe (Ping), TC Terrence Chin0Loy (Pang), and Alan Williams (Un Mandarino).
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The Broadway Podcast Network has announced its new season of Tom Alan Robbins’ Twits in Peril, which has recently been released, co-directed by Tom Alan Robbins & Dori Berinstein.
Michael Urie (Cyril Chippington-Smythe, Nik Walker (Ford), James Rana (Lincoln), Christian Borle (Binky), Dakin Matthews (Bentley), Fergie L. Philippe (Ernie), with Mary Testa (Aunt Hypatia), Stephen DeRosa (C. Langford Cheeseworth), and Lillias White (disembodied, omnipotent voice), with Stephen Berger, Katy Blake, Helen Cespede, Lilli Cooper, Ann Harada, Noa Lev-Ari, Jacob Smith, Nick Sullivan, Wesley Taylor, Rachel York, and Teddy Yudain.
Cyril Chippinton-Smythe has never met a water he didn’t like. When is old friends, Ford and Lincoln, bet him that he can’t survive living like and average citizen named “Johny” for a week, he jumps in with both feet and his cousin Binky jumps with him. Alas, his stream-powered calet Bently must stay at home or his secret identity will be impossible to conceal. Guided by his grocery delivery-person Ernie, Cyril attempts to blend in with the crush of humanity but without Bentley’s help he soon finds himself embroiled in one misunderstanding after another.
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2024: The Janice Jam: Broadway for Breast Cancer concert, in support of the Breast Cancer Reasearch Foundation, will take place Mon. May 13 at 7:30 PM at NYC’s Haswell Green (240 W. 52nd St.), with music direction by Jacob Yates.
Audra McDonald, Will Swenson, Norm Lewis, Omar Jose Cardona, Jackie Cox, Kayla Davion, Matt DeAngelis, Lissa DeGuzman, Christine Dwyer, John Gallagher Jr., Julia Hoffman, Bre Jackson, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Eric Michael Krop, Caissie Levy, Jelani Remy, Colleen Sexton, JTalia Suskauer, Ryan vona, and Nik Walker.
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An invitation-only industry presentation of Jon D’Agostino & Michael August’s Every Wednesday Night will take place May 10 in NYC, directed by Chad Austin, with music direction by Mark Baron. For more information, email Rashad@EvanBernardinProductions.com.
Tony Yazbeck, Kate Rockwell, D.C. Anderson, Ashley D. Kelley, Lance Roberts, Justin Sargent, Katie Sexton, Nyla Sostre, Will Wilhelm, and Robert Cuccioli.
The musical follows a young man dealing with the loss of his father while on the brink of fatherhood himself. On a whim, he steps into a local New Jersey bar on karaoke night and finds himself among a quirky group of regulars, each using the microphone to escape their own troubles.
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Video: Highlights from Broadway’s The Great Gatsby, starring Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada
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Shakespeare on the Sound will present Romeo and Juliet June 12-30 at Rowayton, CT’s Pinkney Park, directed by Claire Karpen.
Kendall Cafaro (Juliet), Ray Hugh (Tybalt), Noah Michal (Lady Capulet), Jahsiah Mussig (Mercutio), Jater Webb (Romeo), and Amelia Windon (Nurse).
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The 10th Annual Title Waves: 2024 New Works Festival, presenting staged readings of new plays & readings in development, will run May 17-19 at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre.
The Ordeal of Water (May 17 at 8 PM), by Stephanie Alison Walker, directed by Jen Wineman, and featuring Hannah Bonnet, Ani Mesa, and more TBA.
Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids (May 18 at 2 PM), by Vincent Terrell Durham, directed by Kimille Howard, and featuring Torsten Johnson, Gillian Williams, Dante Jeanfelix, and more TBA. A liberal white couple throws open the doors of their renovated Harlem brownstone and hosts a cocktail party for their African American neighbors. The guests are a Black Lives Matter activist, his plus-one, a Black bookstore owner, and the mother of a slain 12-year-old boy. A well-intentioned night of community devolves into intense debates, pointed accusations, and a shocking revelation of implicit bias.
Dutch Master: A Musical (May 18 at 8 PM), by Jeffrey Stock & Marc Acito, directed by Will Pomerantz, and featuring Santino Fontana, Melissa Errico, and more TBA. The true story of an art forger with the soul of a fine artist and the morals of a con artist who pulls off one of the most audacious frauds of the 20th century. But when one of his fake Vermeers is bought by the Nazis, he finds himself on trial for treason, painting for his life.
House of India (May 19 at 3 PM), by Keepak Kumar, directed by Zi Alikhan, and featuring Jasmine Sharma, Devon Kolluri, Tommy Bo, and more TBA. When a traditional Indian restaurant stuck in a depressing strip mall in the Midwest is vandalized, Ananya and her family must decide: Do they give up on tradition and convert the restaurant into an “Indian Chipotle,” or do they give up on their “American Dream” and close up shop? A play about South Indian food, familial expectations, and figuring out what really makes a “House” a home.
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The world premiere of Being Alive: A Sondheim Celebration will run June 5 – 30 (opening June 8) at CA’s TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, conceived by Robert Kelley & William Liberatore, and directed by Kelley.
Anne Tolpegin, Nick Nakashima, Melissa WolfKlain, Noel Anthony Escobar, Solona Husband, and Sleiman Alahmadieh.
The piece spotlights a group of performers exploring the ever-changing nature of love in their personal lives. A paean to both Sondheim and the process of creating theatre, the musical also showcases the performers’ journey staging a show from dress rehearsals to opening night.